The citizens of New England entered most heartily into the idea of establishing this college and contributed whatever they could; utensils from their homes, stock from their farms, their goods, merchandise, anything, in fine, which they had to give, so anxious were they to educate their youth, and especially to provide for an educated ministry. Peirce, in his History of the college, says:—
"When we read of a number of sheep bequeathed by one man, of a quantity of cotton cloth worth nine shillings presented by another, of a pewter flagon worth ten shillings by a third, of a fruit-dish, a sugar-spoon, a silver-tipt jug, one great salt, and one small trencher salt, by others; and of presents or legacies, amounting severally to five shillings, one pound, two pounds, &c., all faithfully recorded with the names of the donors, we are at first tempted to smile; but a little reflection will soon change this disposition into a feeling of respect and even of admiration."
"How just," says President Quincy, "is the remark of this historian! How forcible and full of noble example is the picture exhibited by these records? The poor emigrant, struggling for subsistence, almost houseless, in a manner defenceless, is seen selecting from the few remnants of his former prosperity, plucked by him out of the flames of persecution, and rescued from the perils of the Atlantic, the valued pride of his table, or the precious delight of his domestic hearth;—'his heart stirred and his spirit willing' to give according to his means, toward establishing for learning a resting-place, and for science a fixed habitation, on the borders of the wilderness!"
Mr. Sibley gives an extract from New England's First Fruits, a work printed in London, not long after the first class was graduated. It gives us the feelings of the emigrants about their new institution. It says:—
"After God had carried us safe to New England, and wee had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our liveli-hood, rear'd convenient places for God's worship, and settled the Civill Government: One of the next things we longed for, and looked after, was to advance LEARNING and to perpetuate it to Posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the Churches, when our present Ministers shall lie in the dust. And as wee were thinking and consulting how to effect this great Work, it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. HARVARD (a godly Gentleman, and a lover of learning, there living amongst us) to give the one halfe of his Estate (it being in all about 1700 pounds) toward the erecting of a Colledge, and all his Library." The edifice is described as "faire and comely within and without, having in it a spacious Hall, where they daily meet at Commons, Lectures, Exercises, and a large Library, with some books to it."
The rules and regulations of Harvard in early times are interesting to us of later generations. The following are specimens:—
"When any scholar is able to read Tully, or such like classical Latin author EXTEMPORE, and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose suo (ut aiunt) Marte, and decline perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue, then may he be admitted into the College, nor shall any claim admission before such qualifications."
